Court to decide if picketing law restricts speech

Is it an unconstitutional restriction of free speech to require public-employee unions to provide
10 days’ notice that they intend to picket their government employers?

The Ohio Supreme Court agreed this week to provide the answer.

The justices will hear arguments regarding an appeals court
ruling that
found a state law requiring advance notice of picketing violates public employees’ First Amendment
rights.

The case stems from 2007, when employees of the Mahoning County Board of
Developmental Disabilities picketed a Youngstown board meeting during a contract dispute without
providing notice.

The State Employee Relations Board later ruled that the unionized employees
committed an unfair labor practice by violating the state law requiring notice of picketing,
prompting court action.

Earlier this year, the Seventh District Court of Appeals overturned a
trial-court ruling, finding that the state law serves as an illegal content-based restraint on free
speech since it applies only to public employee unions.

“It creates a disfavored speaking by discriminating against public employees
and their union and burdening their ability to engage in spontaneous speech in the form of a picket
at a board meeting,” the court wrote in its opinion. “The desire to avoid oral dispute with one’s
employees in public is not a compelling state interest at the expense of free speech.”

In their
arguments,
lawyers for the developmental disabilities board and SERB argue that the law does not violate the
First Amendment since it is content-neutral and regulates only “time, place and manner.”

“It is not aimed at preventing any speech based on content, but merely at
achieving advance notice to ensure legitimate government interests in peaceful labor relations,”
they argue.

The unionized employees had urged the Ohio Supreme Court to let the appellate
ruling stand without review. In
filings, the union argued that state law indeed imposes a ban on labor speech,
arguing the picketing-notice requirement is a prior restraint until the tenth day.